11/10/2008

New Op-ed up at Fox News: Vote Counting in Minnesota

Minnesota is becoming to 2008 politics what Florida was in 2000 or Washington State in 2004 – a real mess. The outcome will determine whether Democrats get 58 members of the U.S. Senate, giving them an effective filibuster proof vote on many issues.

When voters woke up on the Wednesday morning after the election, Senator Norm Coleman led Al Franken by what seemed like a relatively comfortable 725 votes. By Wednesday night, that lead had shrunk to 477. By Thursday night, it was down to 336. By Friday, it was 239. Late Sunday night, the difference had gone down to just 221 – a total change over 4 days of 504 votes.

Amazingly this all has occurred even though there hasn’t even yet been a recount. Just local election officials correcting claimed typos in how the numbers were reported. Counties will certify their results today and their final results will be sent to the Secretary of State by Friday. The actual recount won’t even start for over another week on November 19th.

Correcting these typos were claimed to add 435 votes to Franken and take 69 votes from Coleman. Corrections were posted in other races, but they were only a fraction of those for the Senate. The Senate gains for Franken were 2.5 times the change in the presidential race count, 2.9 times the total change across all Minnesota congressional races, and 5 times the change for all state House races. . . .

The piece has gotten widespread coverage on everything from Drudge to HotAir to Ann Coulter and many other websites. For two days now it has been the most read and emailed piece on Fox News.

489 Comments:

Anonymous said...

If I wanted to cheat, I probably would have given Franken enough extra votes to actually take the lead. Since you are now in the business of making blatant assumptions about people's intentions, why not assume election judges undercounted their recount so Franken would gain a little and still lose to Coleman?

It seems your attempting to sow the seeds of doubt.Any of these anomalies in precinct reporting will be will surely be uncovered in the complete hand recount. Im a Minnesotan, and I really just want to know who actually won. Hand recounts are by far the most accurate method, and with this tiny margin they are more than warranted. One senate seat either way isn't going to make that much of a difference. I seem to recall the republicans in the senate had a novel strategy for preventing a filibuster...

Your analysis fails on several points. The most obvious is the implication that corrections in heavily Democratic districts should favor Coleman! I also received a doctorate from the University of California (1976, Irvine), but I at least learned how to use cross-tabulation.

All that I read in your article is some conjecture regarding potential fraud with no shred of evidence upon which to back it up. When you have some evidence to back up your conjecture, then I am interested. Speculation and $2 will get you on the subway.

"With ACORN filing more than 43,000 registration forms this year, 75 percent of all new registrations in the state, Minnesota was facing vote fraud problems even before the election."

Not to be mean, but how does somebody who's worked in high positions at prestigious universities not understand the difference between vote fraud and voter registration fraud? Find me one person who can vote without an ID, please, or realize that your hatred of liberals is blinding you.

Doubt is inevitable in any close election. However, the fact that vote totals changed because of human error does not surprise me; in most races it would not even register on people's consciousness. Counting millions of ballots quickly and accurately is hard business, no matter what anyone says. We should consider ourselves lucky that Minnesota is one of the few states that does it right, and keeps a voter record to recount.

All this is a result of archaic and unfair system of senatorial elections in Minnesota.The fact is: it is a TIE between two candidates.Even couple of dozens votes here or their decided this elections it will not be representative of the will of the people. The will of the people split evenly with margin of measuring error.

So all US states should adopt the system that is now in play in Georgia: if none of candidates has a clear majority then run-off election should be held between two topmost candidates.

It wouldn't surprise me IF ACORN IS to blame for a lot of the voting fraud. Makes me even wonder if Obama did win, no one seems to care about the real truth there. I sure do hope that in the future elections ACORN won't exist...what a big troublesome organization they have turned out to be. IF it is always because of their employees that are causing the problems one would think they would scrutinize their prospective employees to be more honest than what they have done in the past. To hire just anyone (especially ex-cons) like they have been known to do for many years for such important information is rediculous to say the least. This is my country just the same as a democrats and to see the media and ACORN show so much favoritism, there should be a new law for including the good of a Republican and Democrat equally instead of only reporting what they consider bad about the party they did't want in.

Does "fraud" mean that the corrections aren't real, meaning that someone wanting Franken to win is making these corrections, or could it be that someone wanting Coleman to win made the"mistakes" in the first place, and these new number are making them correct?

Yeah, and we all know of the long history of Democrats stealing elections from Republicans. Like that time the Supreme Court stomped on the 10th and 14th Amendments and the time Ohio Attorney Gen Blackwell made sure there were not enough voting machines in Dem ocratic districts. Oh...wait, never mind.

What a terrible article full of speculation! Let's try another (not Fox News) look at the situation. Maybe there was a lot of mistakes made that happened to aid Norm Coleman in the general election? But republican voter fraud never happens... I'm not saying we should be speculating on either side of issue. Lets just talk about what is going on in Minnesota and let the people decide what to think.

Minnesota has one of the most transparent state governments of any in the U.S. They are going to great lengths to insure an accurate recount. I would suggest that before you start spouting off GOP crap that you check out the care with which this recount is being handled. And the stupid GOP candidate wanted the Democrat candidate to withdraw from the recount WHICH IS MANDATED BY STATE LAW. Republicans are just such sore losers.

Mr. Lott,Please check the facts before writing your op-ed pieces. There is no voter fraud in Minnesota. Minnesota has very clean elections. Data entry errors occur in every election in every state. that isn't fraud that is tired volunteers making a mistake that is later corrected during certification.Opinion pieces such as yours do a disservice to the country.

You're math is interesting. The gains for Franken were on the order of a hundredth of a percent, considering the size of the total voting population of Minnesota. Go ahead and stir controversy if you want.

Mr. Lott, I am originally from Minnesota. I am nearly 100% certain Mr. Coleman is not getting screwed through some partisan slight of hand. If the good [read honest] people of Minnesota are saying they miscounted, then they miscounted.

The more important question you might address is why is the incumbent in such a tight race in the first place. Could it be related to the lawsuits in which he's embroiled? Something to think about........

1. I am curious what revisions there have been to the 3rd party candidate's vote totals. That information would help to interpret the other numbers.

2. I am puzzled about the reference to ACORN's registration numbers. Is there a single known case of a fraudulent vote (as opposed to multiple registrations and fake registrant names that would not result in any improper votes cast) related to ACORN activities in MN?

The only fraud here is supressed votes that are now being counted. I LOVE how republicans clamor about "voter fraud" in order to not count the votes. This is the GREATER voter fraud. Any inappropriate registrations are bad I give you ... but they CAN'T VOTE. You need a registration card, a birth certificate, driver's liscense, etc. to vote. This is just an attempt to suppress democratic votes by the republicans.

My God John, do some homework on this issue, would you? ALL election totals are unofficial until certified by the state, which won't be for another week. In 2002 Coleman's total decreased by over 8,000 once the vote was certified by the Canvassing Board. In another state-wide election, one candidate gained 23,000 votes between the election night total and the official total. That vote totals change as counties and cities recheck their election-day work might be some revelation to you, to those of us who follow elections know that it is all part of the process.

Have you ever considered that those "exceptionnal" 500 (!) corrections might actually not be a "coincidence" at all?

Maybe, just maybe, election officials might be more careful in checking for their mistakes concerning an election that could be decided by a few hundred votes? What's the motivation for them to verify their tallies in search of minor errors when the victor has already been annouced a week ago, and on the national level?

Apart from that, good job crying fraud even before the official recount, way to not "discourage voters" and to prevent hysteria.

I agree with John. I'm a democrat but fair is fair. The optical scan erally makes me doubt the "undervotes" -- being that I've worked in the "scanning" business and it is far more accurate than "hanging chads".

There's a term for drawing conclusions in advance of any evidence to support them, and it isn't compilmentary. There are several scenarios which would account for the discrepancies observed - do I have to point out that voter fraud on the part of the other side is first among them? Minnesota's mandated recount seems like a good idea to me. I'd rather have the system police itself that have it policed by people who don't live in the state, who don't have any direct evidence one way or the other, who have little chance of being unbiased.

The issues with ACORN is not a voter fraud isues, but a voter registration issue. As the author of this Op-Ed piece is a "senior research scholar" I can only assume he knows the difference. The issue here is not that some lowly ACORN volunteer was trying to boost his/her registration efforts by filling out cards for Mickey Mouse, but ensuring that ALL ballots that were lawfully cast get counted. I agree with Mr. Lott that the recount efforts or courts should not try to interpret the intent of a voter and as such, ballots that have no vote cast or have multiple votes cast should be discarded. There is precedence in MN for having the initial results reveresed during the recount. An example would be the 1962 Governor's race between Elmer L. Anderson and Karl Rolvaag. The recount changed the final outcome of the race. The initial count had the incumbent governor, Mr. Anderson, in the lead by 142 votes. In the end Karl Rolvaag won the election by 91 votes.

Hey, FAKE NEWS CHANNEL. Minnesota law requires an automatic, hand recount of all ballots in statewide races with a margin of less than 0.5%. The Franken-Coleman race has 204, which is 0.01% of all cast. This eliminates undercounted ballots and transcription errors of ballot counts, which is where the makeup difference between Franken and "$75,000 gift suits Coleman" is located.

Wow, a bunch of quasi-mathematical happenstances cherry-picked to imply fraud. Sounds like the kind of stuff that Democrats did in 2004 - you know, when Republicans hooted and laughed them out of the race and called them "conspiracy wackos." Democrats were also told to "get over it" and "stop whining" quite a bit.

I personally love this delicious tidbit:

the real travesty will be to start letting election officials divine voter's intent

Of course, that statement appears at the end of a piece that does nothing but make unsubstantiated inferences about the intentions of the election officials.

John - some evidence that the corrected votes are fraudulent might be nice.

Not to say that it *couldn't* be fraud that has been responsible for the numbers you cite, but the Senate race is the only race close enough to look at with this degree of scrutiny. It would be astonishing if there weren't more total "corrected" votes than in the other races.

However, consider what kind of error may have happened - a transcription error. One person reads a number, another writes it down.

Humans have an amazing ability to remember individual digits, but given a sequence of digits (i.e. a number), will very often rearrange the sequence and switch which digit is repeated.

553 can easily become 533.846 can easily become 864.

This is the reason most numbers we use, e.g. SSN, credit cards, account numbers, have built-in sanity checks - a verification that the number is valid, using special formulas that catch digit flipping errors.

Vote counting is by its nature, unable to catch these errors.

And what are some examples of digit sequences that could result in exactly 246 votes undercounted?

6393 -> 66396693 -> 6939

So, I would have to say that the errors are not that surprising.

sincerely,Mathemetician Dude.

(Most digit swapping between successive digits in a number will result in an error of a multiple of 9, so those tend to be obvious numbers for errors, BTW.)

Did it ever occur to you that more statistics are needed to make this claim of fraud? How do you know that other states and races would not have the same amount of 'mistakes'? Would you not expect the same results if you inspected every single race with a fine-toothed comb?

I agree that this deserves very close attention and needs to be organized by a non-partisan committee. I do not agree with your assertion that just because the wind is blowing blue that there must be some type of fraud in Minnesota.

Nowhere in this piece is there mentioned any actual evidence of voter fraud, just a lot of innuendo. In hundreds of millions of votes since 2002, a few dozen actual charges of voter fraud brought up. This is why such a stink was made about ACORN in the first place, to cast a shadow over close races in doubt (a lot of people thought the presidential contest would be closer). And lest we forget, in the 2000 election, with Florida being decided with just over 300 votes, giving Bush the election, they counted absentee ballots. To suggest that there's something wrong with counting absentee ballots is ridiculous. In Florida, they counted them even if they were dated or postmarked after the election, and there's no suggestion that that's going on here. So now you don't want absentee ballots counted, if it may go against your candidate? Shame on you.

To my mind voter fraud, or voter registration fraud should be a capitol offense. In our society the only way we have of peaceably changing those who we select to govern us is through the ballot box. If that is stolen from us, then the only means we have left of changing the government is assasination or rebellion.

There should be rigourous checks to ensure that only those people eligable to vote are allowed to do so. I.E. proof of citizenship, such as a passport, or certified birth certificate, or naturalization papers, a government issued photo ID card, to verify identity, and a database to cross reference those ineligable due to felony convictions and remove them from the rolls of eligable voters.

The process of voting must be absolutely transparent. Verification of a zero count prior to any votes counted, verification of the number of votes recorded against the number of voters at each voting place.

If we cannot trust our government to do a simple count, honestly, openly, and correctly, then the reasonable expectation is that they must be removed by any and all means necessary, and replaced with those who will listen to the voice of the people.

This trancends the differences of party, it goes to the fundamentals of representative democracy itself. Too many good men died to give me the right to vote on government for me to allow someone to steal it by fraud. If they cannot understand that, then a short rope and a long drop should be enough to convince them that the game is not worth price to be paid.

You made a noble effort explaining the count, but no effort at all explaining the "fraud" that was supposedly perpetrated. If you know of some fraud, come out with it! If not, stop with the insinuation.

You made a noble effort explaining the count, but no effort at all explaining the "fraud" that was supposedly perpetrated. If you know of some fraud, come out with it! If not, stop with the insinuation.

A view from Denver - my wife and I are not surprised as to the vote changes - we do like Minnesota - the problem will be with the "Democrat Machine" if they choose to divine a voter's intent!Good luck MN!Don Denver

I don't know anything about the Two Harbors errors, but a mistake that results in a 100 vote swing is easy to make even though the difference appears to be large. All it requires is that the official misreads one digit when reporting the final tally. 541 votes for Franken can easily become 441 if the election official is tired or the numbers are poorly written.

Overall, your opinion piece seems high on innuendo and implications and light on facts. You equate ACORN registration fraud with voter fraud without providing a single example of the latter. You throw out the smoking gun of corrections that benefit Franken coming from Obama leaning districts as though the coincidence alone is sufficient to prove fraud. Why don't you just come out and call the election officials liars and cheats and be done with it?

I much preferred Nate Silver's analysis of the recount at fivethirtyeight.com. He had more analysis with less innuendo and accusations. Either way, the recount will go forward as planned. Win or lose, this election is too important to allow pundits and ideologues on either side to stand in the way of the democratic process.

I don't know anything about the Two Harbors errors, but a mistake that results in a 100 vote swing is easy to make even though the difference appears to be large. All it requires is that the official misreads one digit when reporting the final tally. 541 votes for Franken can easily become 441 if the election official is tired or the numbers are poorly written.

Overall, your opinion piece seems high on innuendo and implications and light on facts. You equate ACORN registration fraud with voter fraud without providing a single example of the latter. You throw out the smoking gun of corrections that benefit Franken coming from Obama leaning districts as though the coincidence alone is sufficient to prove fraud. Why don't you just come out and call the election officials liars and cheats and be done with it?

I much preferred Nate Silver's analysis of the recount at fivethirtyeight.com. He had more analysis with less innuendo and accusations. Either way, the recount will go forward as planned. Win or lose, this election is too important to allow pundits and ideologues on either side to stand in the way of the democratic process.

Your information on the optical scanners used in MN is faulty. You wrote: "optical scan vote counting machines return ballots to voters if no vote is recorded for a contested race. ...

Voters themselves insert their ballot into the machine that reads and records their votes, and if the machine finds that a vote isn’t recorded, voters can either mark the race that they forgot to mark or didn’t mark clearly.."

The machines only reject overvotes, not undervotes. You can skip contested races on the MN ballot and not have the ballot popped back out of the machine.

I understand your concerns but if your basic understanding of the optical scanners is wrong, how can your commentary be trusted?

We have a high level of ballot security in this state. There will be a hand recount so we will see what actually happened in the precincts you cite as problems.

We have never had a proven case of election fraud in this state. Our same day registration is a model for the rest of the country to follow. With a Republican Governor and a long history of sending both Republicans and Democrats to the Senate and House, we are not a poster child for election fraud and I resent your polemic against us. Particularly when your basic facts are wrong.

You forget that the only reason they are going through and making these corrections is because the race is so close. If this race were much further apart then it would have been called and this kind of scrutiny would not have been applied. There will be insignificant errors in vote tallying nationwide but it's only when these errors have a bearing on the actual result that every last vote needs accounting for.

The Republicans, the masters of vote manipulation who have historically disenfranchised large numbers of voters, are not going to succumb a senate seat to voter fraud.

Voter fraud could tip the election. But so could anything in a race so close. How about voter disenfranchisement? Partisans will naturally focus on the unfair factors that hurt their guy.

Anyway, the recount will make these late 'corrections' irrelevant.

But even then there might be errors. Such is life in a democracy. The losers always cry foul, but the reason they think it was unfair is because they lost.

Mentioning ACORN undermines your point. Most people know they are a legitimate organisation, albeit a democratic tool. The fanfare during the campaign was just pure strategy on the part of republicans.

Actual voter fraud is rare. You have to be a pretty partisan republican to deny thos well-known fact.

How come nobody is talking about voter fraud except republicans in tight races?

Let's see. . . first question, since when is 58 the magic number for an effective filibuster-proof vote? I could have sworn it was 60.

Corrections were posted in other races, but they were only a fraction of those for the Senate.Maybe because a lot more people voted for the senate candidates than their local mayor?

...precincts that gave Obama a larger percentage of the vote were statistically more likely to make a correction that helped Franken.And maybe that's simply because more precincts voted for Obama? At 50.1% the odds are a correction helps Franken rather than Coleman. But then again, as you already said - we're talking about 3 precincts. Kinda hard to generate a theory with that kind of sampling.

I could keep going, but I'm now getting tired of typing. So I'm going to close with "I don't get it". This article - it reads like a bunch of hyperbole and weak facts throw together to make an argument for. . . what? You summarize with But the real travesty will be to start letting election officials divine voter's intent. when you yourself point out that in MN we use optical scanning machines.

I am from MN and this should come as no suprise our Sec. Of State (richie) much like ohios turned a blind eye to voter fraud because it helped the democrats to which he belongs. This is far to apparent to be "just errors" that happend to occur more for one race and not the others even though they are on the same ballot. The dems will do what they need to get in...cooking the books is just another one of those things. The real crime here is that anyone even voted for Al in the first place. He did not run on a single issue all he did is re-spew Obama's talking points.

The bottom line is... there is, so far, no evidence of "vote fraud" in this race. and similarly classifying "ACORN" registrations in Minnesota as fraudulent without any proof is dishonest, to say the least. Coleman tried to have those 32 absentee votes thrown out, so if you're going to insist on finding fraud here, Norm Coleman's office would be as good a place to start as any.

Before people put on their tin foil hats, remember that these corrections in vote totals don't make any difference--there is going to be an automatic recount anyhow. Observers from both sides will be there. To think that someone is going to risk getting caught while "correcting" numbers that will be recounted anyway is just silly.

"With ACORN filing more than 43,000 registration forms this year, 75 percent of all new registrations in the state, Minnesota was facing vote fraud problems even before the election. Even a small percentage of those registrations resulting in fraudulent votes could tip this election."

Because the fact that ACORN operated in their area automatically means that there was voter fraud, right?

Minnesota Reservations have a long history of Voter Fraud. My husband's tribal Government, Leech Lake, was convicted of ballot box stuffing and fraud using absentee ballots in federal court ten years ago. White Earth and Red Lake also have a strong history of and convictions for voter fraud.

In Florida 2000 there had to have been a claim of illegal activity in order for a recount to take place. There was multiple insinuations but Gore's lawyers couldn't prove anything illegal happened. And, except for the Florida Supreme court trying to change the election laws after the election, the manual recount was rightfully stopped. Is this another, throw it out there, claim that something illegal is happening and so there needs to be a recount? Is Franken like Gore...just needing a few more votes, anyway he can get them?

There are only two groups who say that electronic voting machines aren't ripe for fraud, those who don't know anything about computers and those who intend to commit the fraud. If you think that you 'voted' on one please be aware that your vote does not and never did actually exist. It cannot be 'recounted', nobody can show it to you and it is impossible for anyone to prove that it was or was not counted. The only requirement for successful fraud is to get all the 'right' people into the 'right' places and PRESTO! .. the election result is whatever you want it to be and nobody can challenge it! The idea that republicans are somehow in cahoots with Diebold was floated by liberals as a smoke screen. Most all democrat run precincts have direct e-vote machines being overseen by .. democrats. It's simply IMPOSSIBLE to trust a voting system where there is ZERO forensic evidence of each person's vote. IMO, optical scan paper ballots are the toughest ones with which to commit fraud. DEMAND THEM NOW! (See video linked on my name)

It is possible that a summary hand written number could be wrong. Also they will all be recounted before they are destroyed. More than I can say the GOP Secretary of State in Ohio in 2004. They made sure they were all destroyed before there could be a recount. I have found that articles critical of a positive Democrat outcome are a negative for Fox News and worthy of publishing extensively. Also why Ms. Palin is still in the news with the Greta the grouch interview.

The more I read and learn about Obama and this past election, the more I realize the following truths:

1) The media should be very, very ashamed.2) In America, anything can be bought, including an election.3) Our country doesn't have a clue as to how to run an election. Voter and candidate fraud go unchecked.4) Obama deserves to spend time in the big house more than he deserves to spend time in the white house.5) If ACORN remains tax-exempt after this election we should all be tax exempt and pay no taxes. There can be NO faith in a system that would allow them to continue as they have.6) Obama is a liar. He didn't even wait until he took office to prove it.

At my place, the stars and stripes will drop to half-mast on January the 20th.On the 21st they will come down to be replaced by a "Bonnie Blue Flag", proclaiming independence. That lying bastard sure as hell isn't my president.

Hopefully, four years from now, there will be enough of this nation that I love left to put it back together. Too many patriots of too many generations have given their lives protecting and defending what Mr. Obama is set to destroy. This is a democratic and not a socialist nation. On January the 20th he will lie once again when he says he will "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." Mark my words.

Did Mr. Obama ever PROVE that he was actually eligible to run for office?

Mr. Lott,How do you know if "Minnesota is becoming to 2008 politics what Florida was in 2000 or Washington State in 2006 – a real mess."Why is speculation so important for news?I'm from Minnesota and am perfectly willing to wait for the outcome even if it is December.It makes no difference to many of us in Minnesota so why does it to you?

When I read about "undervotes" my reaction was "of course, I can see where a lot of reasonable Democrats in Minnesota would want to vote for Obama but in no way want to vote for Franken, and can't bring themselves to vote for the Republican", not "oh my gosh something must be wrong with the voting machines, because why else would someone not mark their vote for Al Franken." I hope that reason wins out on this.

The bottom line, one would think, is to let the Minnesotans sort it out for themselves. Or do you imagine they are too cold or phlegmatic to manage their own elections? Southerners, such as yourself, are historically quick to judge, but need I remind you, that your group support state's rights like Clarence Thomas supports hairy Diet Cokes. Let Minnesota handle Minnesota; you help Virginia decide the results of their election...oh...they already did?

It really does not matter what you think, Mr. Lott, regarding voter intent. The state will use Minnesota Law 204C.22 when conducting the mandatory recount. I'm sure that the Secretary of State's office will examine the tapes from each precint. If those machines cannot be hacked, as Diebold has always maintained, then the vote on the tapes will be verified. You can claim fraud all you want, but the count will be verified as the count.

Minnesota is ripe for election fraud? Is there any actual evidence that this is the case? Does the author note realize that, had the original vote total of 700 (and change) votes that Coleman received remained the same that an automatic recount would still have taken place? Thus, while the shifting numbers of votes may amuse and, apparently, befuddle, the partisan observer of the election, they have no meaningful impact on the outcome. Either way all the votes are going to be recounted.

Nonetheless, I find it ironic that the author takes issue with shifting vote totals that have yet to be certified and yet is unhappy that a recount is going to occur. Shouldn’t this make the author more willing to engage in a recount? Or is it that some vast conspiracy is going to undermine the votes that have already been cast? I posit, how exactly does a recount overseen by the judiciary and which involves members of both political parties create a situation which is "ripe for election fraud"?

The author also misses the mark when it comes to inferring intent. What separates the Minnesota recount from the Florida is that Minnesota has, on the books, laws which explicitly outline what are and what are not acceptable markings on the ballot from which to base intent. Thus, there will not be hemming and hawing over the meaning of a hanging chad. If anyone disagrees with voter intent they can appeal the vote. In short, Minnesota provides ample mechanisms for making sure the recount is fair to all concerned parties.

Finally, it is borderline pathetic that the author brings up ACORN. First, ACORN is required by law to turn in all registrations they receive - whether they appear fraudulent or legitimate. Second, it is important to separate fraudulent registrations which occur because of the intent of ACORN employees to artificially inflate their registration totals in order to make more money and fraudulent registrations with the intent of misrepresenting peoples’ polling location and/or other criteria required for voting. Third, even if someone’s registration is fraudulent people are still required to show up, with proper identification, at their polling location to vote. Does the author really expect that this is occurring on a systematic and large scale?

The senate race is the only important and close race on the ballot in Minnesota; It's therefore natural that election officials re-check their totals for that race, and report any discrepancies, while leaving the already-decided races with their initial, perhaps faulty, counts. That the corrected tallies ended up swinging 500 votes one way or another also tells us nothing; That number is about 0.02% of the total number of votes in the state, a tiny margin of error that would probably be found in any particular race that was brought under close scrutiny.

And don't get me started on ACORN. How long will they retain their "most-favored straw man" status among right wingnuts?

I realize you probably don't have much interest in providing a sober analysis of the situation; after all, it's much easier to whip up hysteria by suggesting that election officials will be allowed to "divine voters' intentions." But I'd like to point out that Minnesota has a statute (204C.22) which makes the process of determining a voter's intent quite unambiguous. Hurray, no divining necessary!

living in MN. is a big enough burden to the common man... they will probably raise taxes on anything with the letter E in it, to "pay for a recount" Somebody save my sanity, and send the "independent" who was also on the ballot !!!

Don't worry there will be a recount just for you Mr. Lott. Then any mistakes will be corrected. For you to start crying voter fraud is ridiculous because there have been less than 100 illegal votes cast and prosecuted in the past 6 years by account of the Bush DOJ which has been hard at work trying to dig it up.

Now this is nothing new for Minnesota. The democrats are always able to find that sack of votes in the corner that have not been counted and guess what, the votes are always for their candidate and he wins. Integrity is not a core value with Minnesota democrats.

I am an election judge for a large community near St. Paul. My precinct had almost 2500 votes cast last Tuesday. With the checks and balances and security we have to go through when we certify ballots or make corrections on a ballot makes these "new" ballots for Franken seem very far fetched.

Why are ALL of the missed/problem ballots only for Franken? Again, pretty suspicious.

I'm a conservative from MN, and a Ron Paul one at that, which some would say makes me more open to conspiracy theories. That said, this article is complete tripe. What evidence do you have? All I can see is that your pointing out that this tight race had far more adjustments than any other, but other than the presidential race, this was the only state wide race, and clearly people pay more attention to the presidential race. Al Franken is a douche who should concede (unfortunetly concede to another douche Coleman). You are a douche who should write better articles.

For many days now I have been puzzled by the absurdity of the mathematical impossibility of Franken "gaining" all of the supposedly "found" votes while Coleman has not gotten even one. How is this possible? The short answer, as noted in Lott's article, is that it is not. It is statistically impossible for Franken to pick up all of the disputed votes, a point that Minnesotans will be closely monitoring as we watch this recount. Even in the heavily demoncratic St. Louis County, where democrats consider it a loss when they "only" poll 64% as Franken did this year, one would logically expect that Coleman would gain approximately 36% of all "found" ballots, give or take. Instead, Coleman has gained exactly zero to Franken's 500. This is a modern day travesty of justice that cannot be allowed to stand.

I am originally from Minnesota, so I have first hand knowledge of the people from "the Range". The people on the "Range" have always voted Democrat, since this is how they make their living. Living off the government. The southern part of Minnesota (including the Twin Cities),has support these people for years with high taxes and welfare. No industry will move there because they are so radical.

If you don't think that they are going to manipulate this election, your an idiot. Ever since I can remember, Minnesota has had a communist on the ballot.

I will bet anyone 1 million bucks that Franken will "win" the election, based on votes from the "Range".

I was involved with a group that checked the voter fraud in Hennepin County in 2000 before all the HAVA security was added. It turned up that 5 votes were challanged. 1 was sent for voter fraud. Voter Fraud is only in the imagninations of the GOP to cover up their election fraud which thankfully is coming to an end. Minnesota had clean elections. The discrepancies are no differnt than in the last 3 federal elections. Again there is almost no voter fraud in Minnesota. Who ever wins when all the votes are counted will be our Senator. It is the way we want it.

Some people from ACORN maybe guilty of filing false voter registrations, but this does not mean any votes were cast using these "fake" names and most likely not. The names were faked so the person "registering" the citizen would be paid more. It was not being done to enable voter fraud.

John, one thing that discourages people from participating in democracy more than your fictional voter fraud is the kind of sleazy campaigning done by your boyfriend Norm. Even if he does manage to squeeze one out, he'll be facing the Senate ethics committee with an investigation soon enough.

Besides Duluth, Minneapolis, and St. Paul--almost everyone in Minnesota voted for an Independent or Republican candidate. The scrutiny in these three cities and their respective counties will be strong enough that no fraud will occur during the recount. I think this story is typical Fox News sensationalism to help sell books and advertising space. I know your approach is profitable financially, but why could it not also serve some constructive purpose. You simplify and divide. During the Obama era, you will eventually be ignored because you have nothing useful to offer.

It is no surprise. Unfortunately, I have come to expect this from Democrats.Instead of counting votes, I think some precinct leaders are creating them. Is it possible that these precincts are controlled by Democrats??

Is it actually surprising that those precincts had the largest swing, when they are also among the most populous? Even if every precinct had the exact same rate of miscounts (unlikely, as errors are more probable when more votes are cast), you'd expect roughly the pattern seen here. Your implication by calling these "claimed" typos and the like is that something dishonest has occurred, when it's equally possible that you just don't understand basic statistics.

I don't know whether or not your allegations will prove true, but I think the above story speaks volumes: It takes a long time to do elections right -- and to ensure that they are done right. I'm not going to completely exonerate the state of Minnesota YET, but remember that Secretary of State Mark Ritchie actually ran for the office on a platform of removing the partisanship from the office.

You may very well be right. Let's just let things play out and we'll start passing judgments when the facts merit judgment!

I highly doubt there is voter fraud going on in Minnesota. I am sure if you wanted perspective you would report that voter totals in every state change somewhat for days after the election up until the votes are certified, which will be Nov. 18 in Minnesota. It is only getting attention in MN due to the closeness of the race and only getting attention from someone like you because it threatens the incumbency of a Republican senator like Norm Coleman. As was reported here in MN, but not noted by you, in previous election Coleman has seen his vote total increase by thousands prior to the final certification of the total. It just isn't benefiting him here, yet. There will be a TOTAL recount, as specified by state law, after the 18th. Hold your water and allow the process to take its course and stop being so inflammatory and partisan. Minnesotans obviously have no great love for either Franken or Coleman or this wouldn't have happened. Keep your conspiracy theories to yourself. Minnesota has a great history of clean elections.

Actually, you have it wrong. In general, the optical scanners in Minnesota are not set up to inform voters of an undervote; they only note overvotes. So if just 1-in-1000 of the undervotes actually has an identifiable intent, that would be sufficient to swing the election.

Its a somewhat desperate piece. Norm Coleman himself had a much larger adjustment in his first Senate race. That is why the election night totals are clearly marked 'PROVISIONAL' in caps on the website.

One would expect the totals for President to be totaled more accurately than for Senate. It was the big race after all.

The reason Coleman is making this protest is simple, there were 25,000 undervotes. Some of those will be intentional, but there were 10,000 undervotes in the Presidential race as well. Those are almost certainly not intentional and any honest commentator knows that.

If the undervotes break down in the same proportion as the other votes in the same precint Coleman loses. Coleman knows that and so he is trying to get the mandatory recount required by law as an essential control in the election process stopped.

What Coleman does not take account of is that the Senate is the final arbiter of Senate elections: No recount, no seat, simple as that. Attempting a Florida style intimidation operation is futile.

I first saw my #1 choice, Hillary Clinton, scammed out of her rightful place as Democratic candidate. I then saw my second choice beaten by hype, trickery and lies, backed by a gullible majority of the American public. Now, Norm Coleman wins, and yet the trickery of Obama's liberal drones is at it again. This is a final opportunity to say, No more! America still has some shred of honesty left!

Perhaps you should look into America's most corrupt state (Alaska) regarding the Stevens and Young vote counts. It certainly smacks of more Alaskan Republican Party shenanigans. I truly believe that most of us don't realize the massive amount of fraud that appears to be 'mainstream' in their states political machine. The actions of ACORN are dwarfed by past GOP voter suppression tactics, or partisan Supreme Court decision(s).

The first comment on this article is a perfect example of the following:

For months now I have been reading the political comments posted by readers online and I have noticed that the extreme conservative Republicans are especially hateful, and most of them fill their comments with Rush Limbaugh sound bites. Rush Limbaugh has had way too much "freedom of speech" during these last 8 years, encouraged and allowed to do so by the Republican administration. Limbaugh has poisoned a large bloc of Republican citizens, keeping them trapped in an attitude 25 years out of date. He stokes their fears and amplifies their worst characteristics, driving them to see an enemy in everything out of the conservative box. This prevents these people from accepting the changes and advances of 21st century America, isolating them and making it harder and harder for them to live productive and happy lives. It is my hope that the Obama administration will rein in the poison conservative talk show faction, and the people who follow it and live by it can be healed of their unwarranted hate and bigotry.

To these people I say: there is no reason to be so hateful and fearful! Rush has it all wrong! This is a great country, full of good people, patriots all, and great possibilites for a happy and prosperous life. That neighbor whose views differ from yours is not a terrorist or a socialist or a communist, he's just the fellow American next door. Learn to feel love and hope and generousity. Stop fearing and hating. God bless America!

Let's see, the election is over, so how do I generate interesting content for my blog? I know -- I'll scream about voter fraud! Great idea! Of course, the official vote tallies have not yet been formally submitted, but I'll ignore that. And there will be a recount, so the vote changes I describe are in fact irrelevant. And they didn't even change the supposed outcome! But I'll ignore all that and just yell about voter fraud. That will certainly get people so worked up that they will ignore the total irrelevance of virtually everything I said. Who said vitriol doesn't attract readers!

Congratulations on being a mouthpiece for Fox News. As a professor shouldn't you be looking at history as it relates to this election and rejecting hate speech that is wrapped in the red, white and blue flag of ignorance?

As many have pointed out, ACORN has not been indicted in any state as promoting voter fraud. Mickey Mouse would have to show up at a voting place to be picked out as a ringer. And many new voters are unwilling to give their names and Social Security numbers to complete strangers. Hence, ACORN and state volunteers trying to promote all voting face a formidable task.

In addition, in state competitions the votes for Senators invariably come down to hundreds. And recounts are as inevitable as the cries of voter fraud come the day after.

Please, use your right to free speech to ferret out all sides of the issue. Op-eds are more powerful when they are based on good critical thinking.

I live in Moutain Iron, typically the vote runs 2:1 DFL. To come up with 100 new ballots, all DFL is statistcally unlikely, but the DFL machine up here makes Chicago poitics look like a clean and level field.

Funny how all the recounts are going VERY STRONGLY Franken's way.

One would certainly suspect fraud. The DFL will win on the Range one way or another!

1) Yes FOX news should be ashamed, but fortunatly enough people quit watching the Fear Network

2) Gee I thought the Republicans had all the money, so this should not have been a problem for them.

3) I agree, but we had George Bush for 8 years because of vote fraud in Florida, New Mexico etc. THe jump ball arrow was for the Dems this time.

4) I'm sure you have all sorts of evidence that backs this claim up, and you did not divulge it just so you could weigh in on this blog later.

5) And NONE of the tax exempt churches in the Bible belt use the pulpit for political persons. You really make me laugh.

6) Yeah lying is how you get to be the President of the Harvard Law Review, State Senator, US Senator and POTUS.

Lower your flag, stick your head in the sand, I hope you stay in your house for four years,,,,then four more. (We are already registering more voters!) The socialism has been accomplished by the Bush admin. Banks, Mortgages, Insurance, Autos and more to come. Obama wasn't around for the deregulation/Greenspan party. Sorry anon....

Finally, The CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, NEA, just let Obama waltz in to the Senate and then run for president, not elgible?I guess that would be possible considering the bonehead we have in the White House now. People like you make winning this election more fun than I thought it would be.

What a p*ssy. Get a grip dude. Coleman is going to be a three time felon soon. You guys need to get back to the basics of the GOP.....You've turned into a bunch of crooks, with psuedo intellectuals trying to support the smarm. You're way behind the cuve Lott....Please get a grip. At least an intellectual grip.

What a p*ssy. Get a grip dude. Coleman is going to be a three time felon soon. You guys need to get back to the basics of the GOP.....You've turned into a bunch of crooks, with psuedo intellectuals trying to support the smarm. You're way behind the cuve Lott....Please get a grip. At least an intellectual grip.

To the former Minnesotan with "first hand" knowledge of people from "The Range", and who sees a Communist on every ballot (Oooooo!!!): you were obviously too close-minded and frankly too stupid for that fine state. You seem more Alaska-style.

Minnesota got the template from Washington State. Here the votes were incrementally accumulated over a short range of days and no chance to validate custody procedure was allowed because the finds were fait accompli.

ACORN was involved in that election also registering voters who lived at sewage plants, fire stations and the parks in King county.

The whole election was rotten and it worked so well for the progs that they exported it to the rest of the states.

Liberals are touchy, touchy about this one. It's almost as if they don't want any questions asked. They have adopted a "just shut up and take it" mentality. What are you all afraid of? Isn't a healthy democracy completely unafraid of discovering even unpleasant things about it's voting process?

I am also from Minnesota, worked as an election judge, and the writer is wrong about scanners spitting back ballots without a selection for a race. No one is required to vote on all the races on the ballot. Only overvotes are rejected. Really. That was just one error in this slanted unscholarly screed. Bottom line, they're going to count all of the ballots and there are plenty of checks to ensure that it is all done above board and accurate with opportunities for both sides to protest and have a judge decide on any ballots they can't agree on.

The quality of leadership that Frankin lends reflects genuinely upon the intellect of the average Minnesota voter.

I moved there as my first job after graduating, and took ten years to get out. I cheered as Honeywell left for greener (read lower taxes) pastures.

I applauded as the merger between Northwest and Delta was approved.

I wait with bated breath for 3m to become 2m and get the heck out of there. And I will cheer.

The average citizen of that state deserves the leadership that Frankin will provide. As compelling an argument as Sentator Marc Dayton once provided "I don't feel safe in Washington" shows that state just wants someone to tuck them in. Voter fraud? Who cares. Minnesota deserves it.

you liberals keep running your mouths and believing in "Change"...what a joke..i am a police officer in the south and have to deal with the idiots that voted for change every night..you know who you are..the "i dont have to work for a living cause you owe me", the im on meds but dont really need them so I will sell them instead...the sex offenders and the "i dont believe there is a GOD " clowns...Al Franken is a piece of crap and you know it!!!!!

This follows the troublesome trends of Acorn, the caucus irregularities, the tone of the Camp Obama training as well as the role of Rahm Emanuel in both the causus and financial arenas. Now if Obama goes after the 1st and 2nd amendments, that changes the terrain drastically. Following those shenanigans with an internal security force as powerful as the military will be the icing on the cake. Watch him closely folks.

I must confess a great deal of amusement reading the comments of people from across the country. As a native and current resident of Minnesota and originally from the Iron Range I know that the Democrats up there are a wily bunch indeed. I can almost see it now. The rangers are constantly under the impression that they are being screwed over by the "cities" and I can imagine their reaction is to combat the inevitable voter fraud that must be going on down south for the republican.

To me it is statistically highly unlikely that this is on the up and up. For example, on the 100 found votes for Franken and Obama there were curiously no additions for any of the other races on the ballot. Add in the coincidence that all 100 votes were for Franken and Obama is just a little hard to believe. Try to role a die 100 times and not get any 1's or 2's. Yeah, not likely. With regard to Dr. Hurd, perhaps you should return your PhD. You can spend a lot of time on fancy analysis while the fox is stealing the chickens from the henhouse.

More important than the inaccurate conclusions drawn by the article is the inaccurate premise the argument is based on. Please correct this ASAP in the interest of not misleading readers.

The optical scan machines in MN do not notify a voter if they do not vote for a race. Machines only notify a voter if the ballot is completely blank. Notifying a voter about every undervote would be ridiculous, as Minnesota votes for judges, and there were 46 uncontested races which thousands of people skip over. It would take forever to feed one ballot.

Please get your information correct before pretending to be an expert.

ALL of the corrections are not in Franken's favor. There were only 32 "found" absentee ballots and we don't know who they were for. The two largest corrections in Franken's favor came when the total was called in on election night. When the county auditors got the tape they caught the error immediately. Funny that in 2002 when Coleman gained thousands of votes when the auditors verified the unofficial results he didn't think it was questionable.

The human error that accounted for the discrepancy of 100 votes for Al Franken was simple and not uncommon; if it were in Coleman's favor, you wouldn't mention it at all. As to your assertion that "optical scan vote counting machines return ballots to voters if no vote is recorded for a contested race", who is your source for that? It makes no sense. Voters aren't required to vote for anyone, and if the scanners were going to kick back undervotes, then there would be a third oval to vote for "Neither candidate" .

Per the AP "Kim Brace, president of the consulting firm Election Data Services Inc., said there's no reason a ballot without a vote for a particular race would be rejected.

"Usually they're set to kick back to the voter if there is an overvote," said Brace, who has been an expert witness in court cases stemming from disputed elections. "But in most instances they're not set to kick back to the voter if there is an undervote. After all, the public has a right to not vote for somebody for a particular office.""

You're yet another sore loser right wing conservative who would rather disenfranchise voters than lose. You're the reason this was a landslide for Obama and a banner year for the Democrats. Those of us who are sick of your lying, cheating, vicious and greedy politics showed up and voted. And we are eager to see Senator Al Franken come to Washington, DC. It takes intellect to write good comedy, while maintaining the status quo and refusing to learn from your mistakes requires only stubbornness.

I have a lot to say on this subject because I personally observed 'voting irregularities' in Minnesota. I volunteered with the Kidsvoting campaign and saw so much going on I wanted to scream. No one in authority wants to hear what I have to say, but I can tell you that if you walked into the polling place and were alive, you voted....and could do so at as many precincts as you wanted to. I now know the ways to do it, but I'm too old. You need to be a college student to do it correctly...gives new meaning to the words "vote early and vote often."

John Lott is right on the mark on his article. I did vote for Coleman, and McCain. I wasn’t upset that Obama one because I felt it was a fair election. I am distrustful of the election for Senator here is MN because the odd irregularities in the vote count that have come up and have all gone Franken’s way. Obviously I am from MN, I voted and it is almost impossible to have uncounted votes the way elections are held in MN. If you make a mistake on your paper ballot (over voting) or not fully filling in the circle, the ballot will get rejected and you will get the opportunity to fill out a new ballot. having ballots show up after the election is over with the polls closed and ballots found that were not put through the machine after the precinct (St. Louis County) reported is very odd and I think an investigation of voter fraud is warranted. A hand count is for MORE INACCURATE than a machine count in MN because the Machine either takes it or doesn’t, there is no two ways about it. This is how it seemed to play out on election night. How many votes short is our candidate? Let’s created ballots and put them into the machine after the fact so we can win. The machines are very sophisticated and journal (audit) the date and time the ballots were put through. If 1200 ballots are put through at 7:00 am on November 5th, it will show up in the Journal tape as long as the machine wasn’t tampered with. The Secretary of the state of MN is a Democrat. These counties where the votes were found for Franken were in Democratic precincts. Duluth (ST. Louis County) is a very liberal city. Anyone that has voted in MN in any of the large precincts are required to use the machine voting. I was up all night election night and was very surprised that when they said 99% of the precincts in MN were in with Coleman ahead, I looked at the precincts that had not reported. Guess what, St. Louis county was the 1% not reporting its final numbers.As far as ACORN, Giving out free cigarettes a few years ago and asking the voters to vote for the democrat is vote fraud. Calling someone an idiot just because you disagree is childish and very common from the left. You are either an idiot, dumb, or stupid if your conservative. Some liberals have no legs to stand on discussing politic so they resort to childish behavior like name calling.

Check the MN Secretary of State’s Web Site for this info to follow:

The Counties and Cities That Have Agreed To Help With U.S. Senate Recount - All but St. Louis County have offered help with the recount. Doesn’t that seem odd?

Here are some interesting statistics.

Unofficial numbers with all precincts reporting:Number of Registered Voters: 3,199,981Estimated Number of Votes Cast: 2,920,180

Total number of votes for all the Senate Candidates 2,885,502Total number of MN votes for President 2,910,332

Which leaves 34,678 people that did NOT cast a vote for Senator. Which leaves 9,848 people that did NOT cast a vote for President.

Here are the numbers for MN with 99% reporting at 5:15 a.m. Nov 5th 2008.

1,210,052 Coleman 1,209,015 Franken

Total = 2,419,067

Total Estimated Population of MN in 2006 of all ages - 5,167,101

Difference between votes cast and Total Number of people (According to the 2006 Census - All ages!!!) 2,748,034

I was a poll challenger during this election. Many of the morons voting were "overvoting": marking two choices in one race. The ballot scanner would notice the error, beep, display the error message, and a new ballot would be offered to the voter. The voter, 99% of the time, would push the "accept" button so they wouldn't have to fill out a new ballot. Their "overvote" was never counted. Now we have to endure a hand-count leading to an overvote for Senator interpreted by someone who knows not the voter's intent. Hmmmm...how many overvotes will go to Franken? I'd wager 100%.

In this election, the ballots that were sent out to absentee ballots in MN contained a misprint. These ballots, when sent in, needed to be duplicated in order to fed into the optical scanner. Duplicates should be attached to originals. I watched election judges make duplicate ballots. I watched them make mistakes. I watched them end up with more duplicates than originals. I heard the numbers for overvotes (oh look, she voted for Coleman and Franken). I wonder how many elections judges in these "found votes for Franken" precincts decided the voter really wanted Al. By the way: the 36 absentee ballots found in an election official's car four days afterward? These absentee ballots are delivered to the polling place by county election officials (at least they are supposed to be)on election day. How the ballots ended up in the car...sounds as fishy as a Walleye.

All I want to know is did Ole and Lena´s vote count? Sven was going to deliver their absentee ballots to the courthouse but he might have stopped by at the outhouse. So look for the ballots there and don´t forget to count them!

Amazing how so many people are wanting to give ACORN a pass. ANYONE committing fraud in the reg, or voting process should be denied the right to participate and should be jailed. What is wrong with you people? Why is it ok to fraudulently register people? Why are they doing it? Do you ever stop and think. Minnesota is a joke anyway. Aernt you embarrassed you were the only state that went against Reagan? LOL Incredible

I'm a new minnesotan, just moved here from Kentucky for an orhtopaedic surgery position, and I have never been so proud to vote in an election. For the first time, I felt like my vote actually mattered (swing state and all), and I think the vast majority of people here feel the same way. You're not going to get very far crtiticizing the process in Minnesota, especially with a weak argument like that. In addition, the entire point of a recount is to verify just what you are alleging, so what's the point?

I too am from Minnesota, and have three things to say; one is that Mr Lott is pointing out that this election ripe, not necessarily accusing voter fraud. Two, I believe that mr Lott is questioning, as two other commentors have pointed out, it is ODD how the margins narrowed already before recounts, all for Franken, strange that's all he has said...Three, to the commentors that are criticizing the whiny republicans, living in France, the Dems on the presidential elections in 2000 sure let the French think all of American elections are false and cheating is rampant...funny not for Obama though...

This is a very poorly written piece. It is obvious the author is not from Minnesota, and obvious he voted for McCain - poor journalism exposes personal bias, and this is poor journalism.

I am from Minnesota. And we do have optical scanners in the Twin Cities, and much of greater Minnesota; yet, there are tens if not hundreds of thousands that live in areas without an optical scanner, rendering a lot of this argument mute.

The average age of an election judge in Minnesota is 68 years old: aka, they make mistakes.

And honestly, if Norm Coleman truly thought he would be the eventual victor, he would be encouraging democracy to flourish; Coleman is scared, knowing he will lose, so he is throwing every wrench into the gears that he can.

2006: Missouri, a state very close to the size of Minnesota, recounted a state-wide election and swung the vote totals to the tune of over 80,000 mis-counted and absentee ballot votes. Why are members of the press like yourself misinforming voters that that kind of change is unlikely? Indeed it is almost the precedent.

IOf all the votes in all counties were counted in the first place--and there is still one county that has NOT been counted, Franken would have kicked Coleman's ass and will in the recount. You Red Republicans can't handle it unless your "president" steal an election--2000. Fuck the haters who want a double standard. Franken will win once ALL the vote are counted and you can't handle the TRUTH

This is a bad piece of journalism. The author seems intent on scaring people and convincing them there is fraud going on when NONE has actually happened. Most importantly, Minnesota will recount all of the votes, period. Regardless of any errors reported or not reported. Why is so much of this piece centered around corrections? Just to scare people. My second thought is that there is no evidence that the recount won't be accurate ... none. Just more ACORN talk which had to do with voter registration. There wasn't even any talk of voter fraud, proven or otherwise, during the election. A recount will only verify legitimate votes. Not scary at all.

EVERYTHING a liberal says is a lie. Liberalsim is built upon a lie and liberals carry the lie throughout everything they do. You won't have enough time or space to catalog the lies coming from the left now that they control the Federal government.

One wonders that if ACORN's mission was to help Republicans instead of Democrats, posters here wouldn't be offering the silly, Clintonian "it's voter registration fraud, not voter fraud" argument. Since the obvious seems to have been missed, I'll lay it out -- those who have no problem committing voter registration fraud on a massive, nationwide scale, have a high likelihood of having no problem with facilitating actual voter fraud. The parallels to Tom Daschle's last fraudulent win in S.D. are stunning.

Your comment, " The reason is simple: optical scan vote counting machines return ballots to voters if no vote is recorded for a contested race."is incorrect. I entered a ballot with a contested position unmarked and the machine did not return the ballot. If it was supposed to do that it would just be an example of un-intentional or mechanical errors that can occur that make the audit and recount more important. In the 2006 election there was one race that had a 1600(Star Tribune 11/11/2008) vote swing for such errors.

John Lott, you have a lot of stupid people commenting on your website. I guess this must be Obama's truth squad in action. If your not from MN, you should know you cannot know people's intentions on how they will vote. You fill in the circle and if you don'ty fill any circles, they count as a no vote. The fact that they are finding all of these "missing" votes all for Franken is statistically impossible. Get a grip you mentally challenged liberals!

The only get out the vote effort that counts in close races it to get out the vote after the polls close. Democrats have proven they are much better at this than Republicans. The manufacture of votes is a time honored Democrat tactic going back to the first Major Daley in Chicago.

I am amazed at the number of people posting their opinons that don't realize that this article was also an opinion, an op ed. It seems most of those objecting were also from the left. Trying to shut down free speech already?

Here in Wisconsin, there were roughly 5000 more votes cast in Milwaukee than there were registered voters. Milwaukee was an area that ACORN concentrated on quite heavily.

When it comes to elections, the terms 'good people' and 'democrats' are mutually exclusive regardless of the state.

First of all, Minnesota is a state that allows voters to register AT THE POLLS on election day; something like 1 in 4 voters did that in the 2004 election. You'd think this would be enough to make the right-wing noise machine drop this bogus attack, at least in this state. (Incidentally, shouldn't you be bringing out the unverifiable claims of election judges who supposedly had people with fake-looking IDs trying to vote as Mickey Mouse and the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys? No? You mean registration fraud and voter fraud are actually two different things? Wow.)

Second, according to this source, the "precinct scan" you talk about -- where the machine tells the voter if his card isn't filled out properly -- doesn't exist in all counties and doesn't work the same way in all the counties that do have it; specifically, it claims that most of the counties do not have the machine spit undervoted ballots back to the voter.

Voter intent isn't a hard thing to discern. If you circled one name and filled out no bubbles, or if you filled out two bubbles but then crossed out one of the names and the corresponding bubble, it's pretty immediately obvious who you voted for.

As usual, the Republican party puts itself in the position of being the one that can win only if enough votes are suppressed or discarded. Perhaps the party should instead change its focus to producing candidates and positions that are appealing enough to win when people actually do vote.

If Minnesota Republicans cannot rise to prevent the theft of this election, we all deserve what's coming, a trampling of individual rights. The game has changed and someone forgot to tell Republicans. After the election has been stolen the winner can clean up the record and no one is the wiser. See Washington governors race for the template ...

I see a great deal of emotional flailing of Mr. Lott here, but very little of it is based on facts. Mr. Lott has presented the facts, and it is amazing to see the mental filters that people see the facts through. It isn't odd that votes weren't counted and discovered after the fact; what's odd is that they are all for Franken. Common sense will tell you that uncounted votes will shows errors for both candidates. With regards to the statement that there is no voter fraud in MN, that is not correct. Voter fraud is reported to the MN Voting Commission, but the Commission investigates itself and, *SURPRISE*, finds that no fraud has occurred. This is verifiable by going to their website. Because the state legislature does not require picture identification at polling places, voter fraud is estimated to be significant. ACORN submits false voter registration forms for under-age,dead, or illegal immigration status individuals, someone shows up at voting time, identifies himself as the name in the book, and votes. This is how voter fraud occurs, my friends, and it is hard to identify unless voter rolls are run against birth and death records, but that's not done. I considered myself a democrat all of my adult life, but after that farcical circus that was Paul Wellstone's Memorial, I've had to re-think my position. What is wrong with the system when the ends -- the election of a democrat senator -- justifies the means -- a lack of honesty and ethical behavior. It's all about power, and holding on to it. Franken is an ersatz comedian and doesn't care about the people or politics: he just wants a national stage to engage conservatives, paid for by the taxpayers. Does anyone remember that disaster called 'Air America'? If people won't pay voluntarily to listen to him on the radio, he'll make them pay through their taxes to hear him in the US Senate.

Of course they are cheating do you think it is just coincidence that the "typo" ballots all come from one heavy domocratic area? Or maybe they are just stupid you would have to be to vote that total moron into office.

MARKS COMMENT ABOUT REPUBS CRYING ABOUT FRAUD IS SURELY THE POT CALLIN THE KETTLE BLACK! AS IS ALWAYS THE CASE, IF A DEM LOSES A LEGITIMATE ELECTION, THE COURTS ARE FILLED WITH WHINING LIB DEM LAWYERS LOOKING FOR A WAY AROUND THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE!

I cannot understand why people of Mn would embrace a loser like Franken. If you take a look at everything he has done throughout his career, it spells "failure" on every aspect. NY city in particular is a place where people like him are being cradled and branded as "smart" and "intelectual", when in fact there's NOTHING there. The guy is mean spirited beyond angry, to the point where he makes himself look like the jackass (this without even looking at his mugshot photo, which really resembles a jackass). The fact he failed to pay his taxes alone should disqulify him automatically from any governmental function, but in a way, after you fail in everything else you've tried, this look like the most logical step forward for someobdy of his stature.

It would not surprise me if those posting in agreement with Lott were actually him by another name.

There is absolutely zero evidence of vote fraud in Minn., and it is not at all unusual for election totals to change by several hundred or even thousand votes as errors made in the hectic rush of election night are caught in the more careful audits over subsequent days.

Stop with this vote fraud vs voter registration fraud nonsense. The purpose of flooding the system with bogus registrations is so that hopefully enough can still slip through to put names on the books for people who won't show up at the polls. Then ballots can be cast on their behalf as needed.

This does not pass the smell test with me. Frankin, about as qualified to be a US Senator like Obama is qualified to be President, and so is my dog, would do anything as would any self-respecting liberal democrat to get another face in the US Senate. ACORN, maybe. Counting accidents, nahhhhh. Something is amiss here and it stinks.

Wait until Obama's Marxist/Socialist "Rule" starts on January 21st. You won't be able to find anyone who voted for him except his wife and I have doubts about that at times.

god i love many of these comments. it's like people are WAKING UP & applying some serious SPIN-REPELLENT!! i think more & more people started realizing how much CRAP is in the media about 15 years ago (from both sides of the aisle, but more to the point from the top down - follow the $$ as usual). this scepticism has grown a LOT, & it's HEALTHY. propaganda is not what this great land needs. PS - BOTH sides pull dirty tricks, so drop the faux indignation.

god i love many of these comments. it's like people are WAKING UP & applying some serious SPIN-REPELLENT!! i think more & more people started realizing how much CRAP is in the media about 15 years ago (from both sides of the aisle, but more to the point from the top down - follow the $$ as usual). this scepticism has grown a LOT, & it's HEALTHY. propaganda is not what this great land needs. PS - BOTH sides pull dirty tricks, so drop the faux indignation.

Not too much of a bitter pill to swallow (though it is a glorious knife twist...it would be hilarious for Franken of all people to rub it in your faces) you right-wing shills, considering the nightmare engendered by your own massive voting fraud four years ago.

Silencing dissent is the tool they will use against America. We are witnessing history in the making. George Bush and his cohorts were horrible for this country, but dont fool yourselves if you think the democrats have clean hands in this fiasco. I would give the majority of balme to GW, Greenspan and Cheney with some Rumsfield sprinkled in.

With that being said we are seeing a moment in time when the left will use this popular groundswell of public animosity to lurch this country hard left. This my fellow citizens is NOT the answer.

I am amazed that people still buy into this failed Dem/Rep divide which places more importance on political ideology then common sense regulation and common sense solutions from a non ideological pool of good ideas.

I wholeheartedly hope that I am wrong in assuming the worst from Mr. Obama, but history is replete with lessons about the epic failure government intervention on the grounds of "fairness, income equality and social justice."

We need to end our age of empire building, we need to reinvest in America and we need to SHRINK the government. Failure is the price of freedom and if you are willing to give away a little freedom for a little security you will have neither.

All those people who feverishly supported Sen. Obama need to keep a close critical eye on what he actually does while in office.

We are on the knifes edge right now, our economy is BAD and history shows it is in times like these that we make our greatest blunders.

Individuality and economic freedom(not collectivism) is what made this country great. Americans need to wake up and pay attention.

I have little faith left in Americans. They are happy and willing to move towards collectivism because of fear. We are no longer a country of independent hard working responsible accountable people. Everyone I meet feels entitled to a job, health care and a nanny state. Well a bit of news for you, our government is incompetent, regardless of who gets elected. They are all part of the problem and part of the machine. They will push their agendas down our throats and by the time we realize how stupid it is it will be too late.

We need to change the 2 party system, they are no longer concerned with being public servants, they want power, control and money......BOTH PARTIES!!!!!

Be smart my fellow citizens and watch out. Do not worship this man, he has to piut his pants on one leg at a time. He has to wipe his butt just like the rest of us and he could end up screwing this country and people over just like George Bush.......he is no messiah and he is just a man, nothing more nothing less.

Thank you for stating the truth; fear of stating the truth tends to silence any opposing viewpoints, and any curious inquiry of the facts. Judging by many of the responses to your op-ed, many of the respondents fear your style of free speech (though I welcome and support it).Many of us have justified concerns about the whole electoral process and the rampant fraud; I don't trust it. One man, one vote... more than just a nice idea.

Hahaha. Had to get ACORN in there somehow huh Faux News? ACORN should sue for libel for all the defaming of them you right wing nuts have been doing. I bet you were one of the guys telling us to stop whining in 04 when the Ohio election was stolen from John Kerry. Now you're concocting some conspiracy theory from selectively chosen figures topped off with completely unevidenced speculation. Count the votes, even if it means your guy loses.

Listen, aside from the buffoons here, we all know that if the changes were reversed, with Coleman getting all the positive changes, the Democrats would be howling like stuck pigs. Not only that, they'd be demonstrating, sending armies of lawyers, etc.

A lot of people here who claim to be smart here don't know statistics and can't read and understand English. The fact that all the corrections have favored only one person and in amounts larger than all the corrections is all other races combined is either a huge coincidence or indication of something else not due to chance. The odds favor the latter.

I don't think anybody is lamenting a recount or believes that on is not necessary. However, several questions I think come to mind when we see post-vote, pre-recount totals flex like this

1)Assuming all or most precincts in MN use the same voting system (it is an assumption, feel free to enlighten us if this is not correct) why is most of the error in three precincts? What are the odds?

2)Given that typical ballots have, depending on the state, between 10 and 15, maybe more, voting opportunities between all the races and ballot issues. What are the odds that Franken would garner 51% (504 of 986) of the errors? I wish someone, say, from the University of California (Irvine) could figure the odds for us (maybe we could get that guy from the show NUMBERS, he lives in CA).

3)Why did some of the summary tapes have the wrong dates on them (I read this in the Star Tribune, I think). Were any from these error-prone precincts? Did the election sneak up on them and they forgot to set the clocks?

4)Why so much "human error"? I thought optical machines were suppose to limit the opportunity for human error.

4)Why is it that "found votes" or adjusted totals in recounts in high-profile cases favor Democrats? And why do the seem to turn on one or two areas (usually controlled by Democrat officials)?Washington's governor's race (winner switch after 3rd recount of King County - weren't there more votes cast than voters?); Tim Johnson SD, losing until late-reporting reservation total supplied margin; Florida 2000, mainly three counties.

6)When someone from MN bets "a million bucks", do they mean "dollars" or male deer? :)

Proving vote fraud is not as easy as proving registration fraud. Do states really take the time to cross-check provisional or absentee ballots to election day voter rolls? Do counties share voter information to check for double voting? Will the Ohio Secretary of State, now that the election is over, distribute to the counties the information from the thousands of suspect registraions she claimed to have, but "didn't have time to do" before the election? Will the MSM demand an investigation after the fact? (I seem to recall an ACORN worker testified that he had voted with a fraudulent registration) Can you, after the fact, prove that 2-3% of the trick-or-treaters at your house this year weren't repeats?

With Acorn at work and same day registration (that requires less verification than it takes to rent a freaking movie) imposed by liberal officials, I would estimate that hundreds of thousands of votes were cast fraudulently nationally, if not more. It's not a conspiracy, its a fact of life that has been perpetrated upon the American electorate for decades. I have personally seen it myself (a woman plastered with teachers union buttons) and its well documented and even bragged about on most university campus's. When election laws are changed to the point all one must do is bring another person with them for verification then we are sunk and nothing is going to protect the ideal of one-man-one-vote. Within my own precinct there were election workers sent out to pick up ballots from elderly and/or handicapped individuals. Ballots that were cast for conservative candidates were found tossed.

So please say the feigned outrage an election can be stolen. Not only are they but it is encouraged by this new liberal thief that has been stealing our voice for decades.

It's almost laughable liberals would come here to try and deny at this point. Please!

Here's the good news, maybe this will motivate conservatives to actually start fighting back and stop being complacent to the liberal rule of the day. Until then we will be subjected to forced acceptance of subversive and divisive social/economic agenda's that make a mockery of our Constitution....until then we we've lost our shining city.

As of January 20th I will be flying my flags in accordance with the distress our national and state elections have brought to my country. My country is now one without a lawful president and filled with placed appointments by way of fraud.

It's amazing! These people that yell at us Republicans to get a life, and just get over it are the same ones that were screaming bloody murder when the final vote in Florida was finally validated and ran through the Supreme Court. If races are being stolen and honest citizen votes no longer count, we have effectively installed a dictatorship. God Help us. Ron M.

Franken won this election. A few discovered uncounted ballots here. A few ballots placed in a dusty corner there. You'll see - he's already won comfortably! I do find it curious however that ballots are not being "found" for Coleman in equal percentages.(in Republican leaning areas). Wonder why that is?

Our forefathers are rolling in their graves. This system was meant for competing parties to put up their best and let the people decide who they want to lead. The current system we have is a mockery of what the forefathers wanted. A comedian, a run of the mill satirist wants to be senator. Some how, God only knows, he got the votes to even make it as close as it was. The democrats have their majority now. They cannot get the fillabuster proof majority that they so desire. Norm won Franken, get over it. Let it go. Go back to Hollywood write some jokes. Streisand will sing for you it will all be good again. I'm sure Alec Baldwin will let you cry on his shoulder. Here's some advice Franken. Look into a mirror and tell yourself "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it all people like me" Say it over and over Franken. Sooner or later you might get over it.

Well it does sound like the Dems in Florida: "Keep counting until we win."

I'm wondering if the silent majority is still the majority. I think we'll find out if they are going to stay silent soon when NObama, Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, Frank, Schumer, Biden, Gore, Kennedy, and the rest:- go after the 401k plans- implement his "brown shirt" citizen army- come after the privately held firearms- go "green" and shut down off-shore driling, coal fired power plants, nuclear power plants, gas goes to $10/gallon, and electricity costs go off the charts- remove the Bush tax cuts and taxes go back to Clinton levels but won't call it a tax increase- tax small businesses out of business or they move to another more business friendly country - enact the fairness doctrine in violation of freedon of speech- launch new economic stimulus packages approaching $1 trillion dollars- bring up reparations to be paid to black families of generations ago slaves- rewrite the constitution to his liking- share the wealth with increased taxes

for starters; and these are not anything they haven't talked openly about.

Get ready it's soon to be the USSA (United Socialist States of America) spreading YOUR wealth for the common good. Or as Karl Marx said: "From each according to their ability to each according to their need."

I for one welcome recounts if only to confirm that our voter systems are reliable. Seems to me that voting machines can be "adjusted" to be just as "loose" as one arm bandits are advertised to be. Any system without recount backup system is an invitation to fraud. Fraud by machine can be perpetrated in a massive and invisble way. Any recounts should be considered a way to validate or invalidate our trust in voting systems. Why would anyone want to discourage system reality checks, HMMMMMM?????

I think everyone is overlooking and underlying issue...the fact that a lunatic like Franken could ever even make it to the ballot. But, then again, Minnesota has a policy of electing officials with their heads up their collective rear ends(i.e. Jesse Ventura who believes 9-11 was perpetrated by the federal gov't). For these reasons, I end any futher discussions by seceding Minnesota to Canada!

Silly me, I was always under the assumption that each precinct had controls in place to ensure the accuracy of the votes and considering the electronic machines now you'll just have to excuse me for doubting the validity the system and the desperate democratic party (not that I defend the GOP either). I'm sure there is a lot of eating of votes going on right now. You can't trust a system that waits so long to recount votes or correct numbers. It should have been dealt with the day following election.

It hilarious how the GOP and Fox news sure didnt care about voter fraud in Fla and Ohio during the last election, but now its all they seem to talk about. As the great American philosopher Sarah Palin once said "gee whiz!!"

Liberals are fundamentally dishonest. It's almost a disease for them. Look at Bill Clinton and his soul brother Barack. Obama lied from the beginning of his campaign to its' end. It's a very sad situation to see liberals from Minnesota attempting to steal this election.

Well, let me guess what your stance was on the Presidential election results in Florida with the outcome being a 500 and something victory for George. W. Bush. Let me guess, that was all clearly correct with no tampering or political help from any other Busc family member or appointees from the previous Bush administration?

This post must have been cross-referenced on Puffington or Daily Kooks - they've let the loons out of the asylum...

Mr. Lott's business is statistics. Plenty of liberals swooned over the daily polls during the election season. So, what is a poll? - a statistical sample taken to represent an overall group. Hmm, kind of like a vote sample should reflect the results in the overall precinct?? So, when a heavily Democratic county in northern MN votes only 64% for Obama, and yet the "new" votes are 100% for Franken, that doesn't seem suspicious to you?!

The other thing people outside of MN don't understand is that people here can't stand Franken - a self-serving, carpet-bagger (practically), who never lifted a finger for this state until he came back to run for the Senate and pad his own ego and lust for power. Franken's core support must be only about 15%, the rest are people voting a straight ticket. Trust me, plenty of Dems held their nose and pulled the lever for Coleman or the third party candidate.

This is obvious, a generally liberal state, in the best environment for Dems in 35 years, goes 54% for Obama, and yet Mr. Franken could only get 42% of the vote. That makes the "new" votes for Franken, even from heavily Democratic precincts, pretty suspicious.

In Washington state we just kept counting until we got the results we wanted, so what if you have to do three or four recounts. Tell Franken not to worry, I'm sure there are more than enough "misplaced" ballots to get him in.

al franken is one of the most famous DISHONEST people in this country. i cant believe, regardless of what party you generally favor, that minnesota would even consider electing this man into congress. it really shows that people vote "democrat" or "republican", rather than based on a person's ethics and background. al franken is a disgusting, erratic human being and i am embarassed for minnesota.

I haven't seen so many moronic posts in, actually, just days...Bleh.........I'll be straight, liberal Dumbocrats ARE cheaters.....they cannot win intellectually, but they gotta have power...so cheat they do.I have a 5-spot that Franken magically wins by a couple of hundred votes...yeah, count the votes my arse. One last thought, if you cannot cast your vote properly or ontime, then your vote is void...read the Constitution you morons.............

No facts, no evidence, no indications yet a complete story on voter fraud. This is why people no longer trust fox news. It is a front for phoney, fake, non factual reporting.

You people have split our country by screaming fire in the movie theater. You collect rating by gathering angry mobs that listen to your lies and made up accusations. You make it harder for anyone to make this country a better place. Fox news is Anti America and people are starting to get it!